Is coffee a beverage and what does the Molly Tea case show?

A Shanghai consumer found a large transparent plastic bag inside a Molly Tea milk tea on March 22 and received 1,000 yuan in compensation. The store could not provide full operation footage because its monitoring equipment did not meet requirements. Molly Tea apologized on March 23, admitted negligence in operating procedures, and closed the store for rectification.

The case drew wide attention on Weibo, where users questioned the brand's food safety management. It also shows why drink shops, whether they sell tea or coffee, depend on working cameras, clear production steps, and staff training. Without those controls, problems that start at the counter are hard to trace afterward.

Recently, news about a complete plastic bag being found in a Molly Tea drink sparked heated discussion on social media. On March 22, a consumer in Shanghai pulled a large transparent plastic bag out of a cup while drinking the brand’s beverage, and the bag still had a brand label attached. The incident quickly trended on Weibo, with netizens questioning the tea beverage brand’s food safety management. The consumer subsequently received 1,000 yuan in compensation, and the store involved was unable to provide complete operation footage because its monitoring equipment was non-compliant. On March 23, Molly Tea officially issued an apology statement, admitting negligence in its operating procedures and ordering the store involved to close for rectification.

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Recently, a netizen posted on social media claiming that they had drunk a plastic bag from a Molly Tea milk tea. On the same day, the topic #MollyTeaExposedForCompletePlasticBagFoundInDrink# quickly climbed onto Weibo’s trending list, attracting a great deal of attention and discussion.

On March 22, a Shanghai netizen posted a video on social media with the caption, “I’m really speechless. Buying milk tea comes with a plastic bag?” The poster said that she bought a cup of milk tea at Molly Tea and felt an obstruction when inserting the straw into the cup. After tearing open the sealed lid of the milk tea cup, she actually pulled out a large transparent plastic bag from inside.

From the video posted by the blogger, the transparent plastic bag was floating on the surface of the drink, mixed with the white milk tea liquid, making it difficult to judge its actual size. But when the entire bag was pulled out, it was clear that its size even exceeded that of the milk tea cup itself. The originally full cup of milk tea was noticeably reduced by a lot, and the bag still had a “Molly Tea” product label attached to it.

After the video was posted, it quickly sparked widespread discussion among netizens. Regarding such a huge plastic bag being found in milk tea, everyone said they found it “unbelievable,” and also expressed concern about the brand’s food safety conditions.

In response to the fact that a plastic bag appeared in the milk tea without being noticed, some people offered their views based on their own work experience: it may have been that when an employee opened a new batch of cups, they casually stuffed the packaging bag into the frontmost cup and then placed it upside down. By the time the last cup was used, it was not carefully checked, and all the shaken milk tea was poured into the cup.

However, other employees who also work in tea beverage shops did not agree with this explanation. They pointed out that every milk tea has a standard production specification, the shaker used to mix milk tea also has corresponding scale lines, and the cup volume is likewise uniform. Even if the plastic bag had originally been inside the paper cup without being discovered, it would definitely have taken up part of the volume. When the employee poured the prepared milk tea into the cup, because it was too full, some would not have been poured in and would have remained in the shaker, and the plastic bag would also have floated on the surface of the liquid because it was relatively light.

Therefore, in the eyes of cautious frontline workers, no matter at which stage this “huge foreign object” appeared, the employee responsible for production should have noticed that something was wrong.

As the incident further escalated, the consumer updated the follow-up situation in the comments section on the evening of the 22nd. After communication and negotiation with the store, she has now received 1,000 yuan in compensation, but the store still needs to give an explanation afterward as to why such a large plastic bag appeared in the milk tea.

The store involved also provided her with the relevant surveillance video, but the employee’s operation process could not be seen clearly. The other party also admitted that the surveillance installation was non-compliant. Before the incident, the store had only two devices, neither of which could capture the production area, so it was unable to provide clearer video capable of proving its innocence. The surveillance has now been rectified.

On the evening of March 23, @MollyTea official Weibo issued an apology statement regarding the matter, saying that the problem stemmed from negligence in the store’s operating procedures, which led to the foreign object not being discovered in time. The store involved has now been ordered to close for rectification.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.